Heart (Muga!) Scan

It occurs to me that I never wrote about getting my heart scan. They did this to get a baseline reading on my heart and to make sure it is okay, before giving me some of the chemo drugs that can possibly damage it.

So I go in, and they put in a pic line thing, and draw some blood. Then I go out and wait for half an hour. While I am waiting, the blood they drew is getting radiated. Then they give it back. (Reinsert? Inject? Yes, inject!) So they inject me with my radiated blood and I get to go lay down on this skinny table that goes into the donut shaped part of this big machine.

Oh! And the techs who helped me with the heart scan were the same two guys who did the pet/ct scan.

Apparently that pet/ct scan machine is so expensive it is in the trailor so they can drive it to different hospital sites so the hospitals can share the cost. (Or maybe they just like people who have a scary diagnosis to go into a windy trailor to put them at total ease...)

Anyways, back to the Heart scan.

They slide the table into the donut hole, and then rotate the sensor thing around until it is right over the area where they are scanning. Again, it is good I am not that clausterphobic. (get me at a table crammed with side dishes, and that's another story). It helped that the donut sides weren't there. Hmmm. I guess a better explanation would be two sets of hula hoops with white boxes sliding around in between them.
Anyways, the tech is getting the scan box in the right place, and it's about 3 inches away from my nose. He says "Don't worry, I won't hit you with it." And he didn't. Good aim.

So they did about three scans. Then they let me go home. Easy peasy.

Now these scans were to track and measure the amount of blood my heart puts out with each beat.  I got the results from Dr. GG this week, and the scans affirm what my mom has always told me, I have a good heart. (har har, sorry for the bad pun).